By the end of December 1989, the
I.P.K.F. had withdrawn from all parts of the North-East, excluding Jaffna and
Trincomalee. A complete withdrawal, which is being insisted upon by the Sri
Lankan government, remains a painful dilemma for India. Such an event will no
doubt raise difficult questions in India, when it comes to counting the cost
against what has been achieved. The Tamil civilian population, both tired and
having lost all capacity for self-assertion, awaits events very much as before.
It accepted the Tiger's dominance in 1986 in the hope that, with one party in
control, life may be more orderly. When the Sri Lankan army launched its Operation
Liberation in May 1987 and was poised to enter Jaffna, the people wished that
the Tigers would go away instead of putting up a resistance that would be costly,
bloody and futile. They had welcomed the Indian army with great relief, after
the Indians had stopped the Sri Lankan army from taking Jaffna.When India got
into a conflict with the Tigers shortly afterwards, they fervently wished that
the Tigers would quickly make peace with India, lest the old adversary, the
Sri Lankan state, gain the advantage. Once talks between the L.T.T.E. and India
appeared to have finally broken down by October 1988, and India decided to back
the E.P.R.L.F. for the provincial leadership, many felt that the Tigers had
miscalculated and that some order would yet emerge.

In areas recently
vacated by the I.P.K.F., people had watched the assertion of authority by the
Tigers and the Sri Lankan forces with mixed feelings. Just as in the aftermath
of the Indo-Lanka Accord, during August and September 1987, there is now relief
that irritations stemming from military conflict were, temporarily at least,
in abeyance. In suburban Jaffna where the air is full of talk of revenge killings
by pro-Indian groups, a grim reality today, many are awaiting the I.P.K.F.'s
departure just as they had wished for the Tigers' departure in the wake of the
incipient Sri Lankan offensive in June 1987. Killings by Tigers elsewhere are
much less talked about.

Surprisingly
little interest is shown in corpses, evidently of Tamils, being washed ashore
in Vadamaratchi. A number of such corpses were burnt during the second half
of January. Of eight corpses washed ashore between Polikandy and Point Pedro
on 26 January, one was that of a child of two. Some were of women. Witnesses
said that injuries pointed to their having been subject to cannon fire. People
generally believed that the Sri Lankan navy had played a role in these killings.
When the matter was raised by India, the Sri Lankan authorities denied any involvement.

In contrast
to the massacre by the Sri Lankan navy of passengers in the boat Kumudini, in
1985, and that of fisherman off Mandaitivu,in 1986 - both of which rightly had
the citizens' committees and church and community leaders voicing strong protest
- this time there was dead silence. The general talk is that the present victims
were supporters of the E.P.R.L.F. and others with family ties to them, who
now are fleeing to India in fear of reprisals. This silence raises questions
of whether the Tamils consciousness and identity, forged under the experience
of common oppression, was still in existence. This is also a pointer to the
ease with which differences among Tamils could be used.

This has been
a time where the symbolism of events had been very different from the underlying
reality. For the Tamil people, it had been a time of mind boggling revision
of association of sentiments and events. Following the provincial council elections
in October 1988, there was evidently an elected government of the Tamil North-East,
led by a Tamil group (the E.P.R.L.F.), the Tigers having refused participation.
There was the promise of more powers being yielded to this government under
Indian pressure. But enthusiasm for this fulfilment of more than what the Tamils
had once hoped for, was evidently lacking.

A Tamil National
Army (T.N.A.) too had come into being through Indian sponsored forced conscription,
with the stated purpose of protecting the Tamils. But its decimation by a concert
of the L.T.T.E. and the Sri Lankan forces was watched with indifference. The
fate of innocent conscripts from the poorer classes elicited little or no public
concern. Many of these conscripts who had little training or motivation, were
killed in large numbers, some after capture. Some were killed by their own side
as they tried to surrender. The more fortunate were ceremonially handed over
to their parents by the L.T.T.E.. Ironically, the areas which passed back to
the nominal control of the once odious Sri Lankan army, were even spoken of
as 'cleared'. The E.P.R.L.F. which had once annoyed Tamil nationalist circles
by standing for a united socialist Lanka, was now threatening the Sri Lankan
government with U.D.I. (Unilateral Declaration of Independence). On the other
hand the L.T.T.E. which had for years refused to negotiate with the Sri Lankan
state on the grounds that the terms on offer did not satisfy their demand for
a separate state of Tamil Eelam, had now reached a tactical understanding with
the Sri Lankan state that even involved operational links.

As for the Indian
soldiers in Ceylon, their feelings evinced a mixture of bitterness, puzzlement
and anger. They felt that they had come to help the Tamils and had lost over
a thousand dead. The "treacherous politics" of the Tamils, they felt,
had turned their benevolence into humiliation and waste. They had little understanding
of the role of their state and army, and the enormous civilian suffering that
had contributed to this state of affairs.

Veteran Tamil
Nationalist leaders A. Amirthalingam and V. Yogeswaran were assassinated in
Colombo on 13 July, 1989. Their politics had articulated the feelings of the
rising generation of educated Tamils of the 1950s who were facing the first
stirrings of discrimination. To write about their lives and their significance
is, by itself, a task for a professional biographer. It suffices to say here
that their strengths, their weaknesses and even their capitulations were not
dissimilar to those of the younger generation of militant leaders in whom they
aroused feelings of hatred, as well as a sense of betrayal. Besides feelings
of grief and nostalgia among members of the public, they also leave behind anger.

For reasons
well understood in Colombo, the affiliations of their killers remained for months,
officially at least, a mystery. By early 1990, however, the press in Colombo
started treating people to conflicting reports in keeping with the general spirit
of the times. The Colombo based Tamil daily, the Virakesari, carried reports
according to which, at public meetings in the North and the East, L.T.T.E. spokesmen
gave reasons why they killed Amirthalingam. The English language press on the
other hand, carried reports quoting senior L.T.T.E. spokesmen in Colombo denying
the L.T.T.E.'s having a hand in the killings. Interestingly, the denials and
the affirmations sometimes appeared on the same day.

Those who did
the killings were themselves gunned down by security men, and came to be commemorated
as martyrs on wall posters which appeared in the Tamil areas. Ironically, Yogeswaran
too would certainly have been accliamed as a martyr to the Tamil cause, had
he died years earlier, when he narrowly escaped death during the officially
instigated police rampage in Jaffna in1981. This symbolic act of parricide which
ended the lives of these nationalist leaders, marks a shift in the actors, rather
than in the politics and its motivating principles.

In the South,
the J.V.P.'s insurgency and the government's military response to it through
far more indiscriminate killing, had resulted in several, perhaps tens of, thousands
being murdered. These represented further refinements of the diabolical methods
developed by the state in the face of the Tamil insurgency. There were well
authenticated reports of mass burnings of corpses and of mutilated corpses floating
down rivers. Following the killing of an Assistant Registrar in 1989 , the University
of Peradeniya was the scene of a gory reprisal where about 15 severed heads
were placed around a pond in the university's centre. Southern human rights
activists have received accounts of many such victims having been picked at
random from detention and rehabilitation centres run by the Sri Lankan government.
University authorities have put the number of university students missing in
the South at over 240 and still rising. Temporarily at least, the government
had reasons to put on a more benevolent face in the Tamil areas. A sizable section
of the Tamil leadership had few qualms about expressing confidence in the new
leadership of President Premadasa during this tragic situation engulfing the
South, in spite of their own historical experience of the same U.N.P. leadership.

Clearly, little
had changed. There was a repetitive character behind the lack of principle and
opportunism governing these events. Far from learning anything, the actors were
becoming increasingly trapped by their schemes and their ideological predilections.
Every move had a note of desperation that went little beyond immediate survival.In
this situation of alliances under-pinned by nothing more than immediate expediency,
no actor however discomfited at one time can be dismissed. The prospects of
lasting peace grow even more distant.

I.2 The Tamil National
Army

It has been pointed out that, although
the older militant groups recruited volunteers and sent them for training in
India, in due course these recruits came to hate and despise the civilian population.
In June 1989, India launched the formation of the T.N.A. by conscription, forcibly
taking in young boys who not only did not want to fight, but also did not believe
in the legitimacy of the cause. The stage was thus being set for a major social
disaster. It is established from a number of testimonies that training was given
by Indian Instructors. To understand this, one must look at the problems of
strategy created for India, in the wake of President Premadasa's call on 1 June
1989, that the I.P.K.F. be withdrawn. It is not in the nature of India's relationship
with the E.P.R.L.F. for India to pump in huge resources into a plan conceived
by the E.P.R.L.F.. Even after the I.P.K.F. had formally ceased operations on
20 September 1989, Indian troops continued to surround localities and search,
looking for escaped conscripts. Publicly however, India denied any links with
T.N.A..

The T.N.A.,
sent into action after a mere few weeks of training, and with little motivation
and a feeling of abandonment, were effectively cannon fodder, even with their
ample weaponry. Their actions were motivated by the demands of survival and
sometimes by elemental hatreds. Driven to hopeless despair by the designs of
powers around them, several of them even showed a touching concern for difficulties
faced by others who were better off.

In Amparai in
late October 1989, some Tamils in a crowd were asked to move out and about 40
Muslims were mowed down by the T.N.A.. Some members of the T.N.A. who tried
to surrender were fired upon by their own side. Despite the Tigers having made
much propaganda out of the conscription of unwilling Tamil youths and schoolboys,
the fate of T.N.A. members falling into Tiger hands varied. Many were released
to their parents. Others suffered as people suffer in the hands of an angry
conquering army. In Batticaloa, in mid-December, an estimated 50 or so T.N.A.
members were found shot dead with their hands tied, after they had surrendered,
following the killing of an L.T.T.E. leader.

There were also
many instances where T.N.A. members acted with pathetic concern for others.
An incident at Kopay junction in December illustrates the deep hopelessness
felt by many. A young man going on a motor cycle to Vadamaratchi was detained
by a group of I.P.K.F. and T.N.A. men at Kopay, for not having a pass. A T.N.A.
boy was asked to guard him.The young man told the boy that he had left his pass
behind as he had been in a hurry to go and see his sick mother. The boy thought
for a while and murmured,"I too have a mother.". The boy then offered
the young man his AK47 rifle and told him,"If I let you go, I will face
punishment.Here, take this gun, shoot me, and go. They will then think that
you escaped". The young man who could not believe his ears, found that
the boy was in earnest. He then talked to the boy and dissuaded him. The young
man's release was later secured by another T.N.A. member who told the Indian
officer that the young man was his cousin.

In the E.P.R.L.F.
itself there were many who were disturbed by the conscription, and actively
aided the escape of T.N.A. boys under their command. A group of nine escapees
who were released at Neervely by the L.T.T.E. in mid-December, 1989, said that
conditions and food had been demoralising. They had slept on the floors of huts,
trying to keep out rain water with sacks. Their leaders slept on railway sleepers.
At Chavakacheri, they had been advised by sympathetic E.P.R.L.F. men to get
transferred to Pandeteruppu from where they would be helped to escape. At Pandeteruppu,
their E.P.R.L.F. leader asked them to run away and that he would take the punishment
for their escape. The punishment would take the form of deprivations and beating.

In some places
the attitude of the T.E.L.O. showed surprising originality. At Trincomalee,
the T.E.L.O. gained popularity at the expense of the E.P.R.L.F. and the E.N.D.L.F.
by telling young men to say, when they are picked up for conscription, that
they are already registered with the T.E.L.O. for military training .The T.E.L.O.
then put them through some token motions such as carrying a gun and then released
them. In other places, the T.E.L.O. got young men to fill up forms and let them
go. These forms were evidently used to procure Indian resources.

When T.N.A.
boys get killed, they are just statistics - 40, 60 or 100 - in the march of
history. When militants allied to India get killed, many civilians would dismiss
them as traitors. Their tragedy, their inner agony and their many instances
of nobility and heroism, are seldom talked about. For their own people, to try
to understand is an unwanted burden. For the decision makers in high places
in New Delhi, it is well to remember that many of their victims were far greater
men than themselves.

I.3 The Tamil Militant
Groups

Of the Tamil militant groups, the
E.P.R.L.F., the T.E.L.O. and the E.N.D.L.F. allied themselves with India. The
P.L.O.T.E., though having lost its political appeal, maintained a strong presence
of fighting men in the Wanni. It had recruited there in the early 1980s when
it made a greater appeal. After October 1987, it steered a line independent
of the I.P.K.F.. At the beginning of the second half of 1989, it withstood a
major attack by the L.T.T.E. in which the latter is said to have had the backing
of Sri Lankan forces. Its present fate is unclear, after it was dislodged from
Chettikulam in early January, 1990, following heavy fighting. It has to contend
with a hostile environment using its residual appeal. Its leader, Uma Mahesweran
was assassinated in Colombo in July 1989.

The E.R.O.S.
appears to have been successful up to a point in avoiding committing itself
to any course that involved risk. It survived as an organisation without being
thanked by anyone. Its political weakness was a consequence of its worship of
tactical survival at the cost of principles. It was very unhappy with the L.T.T.E.
going to war with India, but later appears to have come to an understanding
with the L.T.T.E..

E.R.O.S.'s operations
had the same character as before, giving the public a learned appearance and
using the gun and terror where there were easy pickings. A particular episode,
that of the disappearance of Mr. Kanthasamy, was revealing. Mr. K.Kanthasamy,
a dedicated rehabilitation worker who had the trust of several donor agencies,
returned from his exile and set about planning rehabilitation projects for the
North-East in early 1988. He was also the founder secretary of the Tamil Refugees
Rehabilitation Organisation. The E.R.O.S. applied pressure on him to channel
funds for projects in Trincomalee through a front organisation. Kanthasamy stood
firm and the pressure mounted and took the form of threats. On 19 June 1988,
Kanthasamy was kidnapped. When appeals were made by individuals to E.R.O.S.
leaders, the response reportedly took the form of arrogant maligning of Kanthasamy.
Kanthasamy ,a heart patient, joined the ranks of the disappeared. The E.R.O.S.
then issued a statement praising Kanthasamy and appealing for his freedom. The
facts are given in records that were left behind by Kanthasamy and published
by his associates in London. Kanthasamy was an organised person who maintained
systematic records.

On 15 February
1989, the E.R.O.S. contested and did well in the parliamentary elections, although
the L.T.T.E. had banned any participation in the electoral process, and had
killed two candidates from other parties. The E.R.O.S. did nothing to condemn
the L.T.T.E.'s actions and demand from all parties a respect for freedom to
express ideas. It earned its prize without risking fighting for the principle
of democracy. It was widely believed that the E.R.O.S. had made a deal with
the L.T.T.E..

In March 1989,
the E.R.O.S. did a public service, when its M.P.'s visited Mullaitivu during
heavy fighting and exposed the misery of the civilian population. But its methods
began to breed all round resentment. Its cadre became occasional victims of
pro-Indian groups who looked upon the E.R.O.S. as having benefited from dirty
work done by them. Later, in the first half of 1989, the bodies of six E.R.O.S.
members were found after they reportedly went to an I.P.K.F. camp in the Wanni.
At the end of 1989, the L.T.T.E. issued a leaflet condemning the E.R.O.S. as
receiving training from the R.A.W..

The E.R.O.S.
in earlier years did recruit well motivated and able men, many of whom became
unhappy with the organisation's compromised position. Whether the leadership
can rethink and give the organisation a future is left to be seen.

In the case
of the E.P.R.L.F., the process of militarisation set in motion by the Indian
involvement in 1983 and the success of the L.T.T.E. and T.E.L.O., first drove
it to despair and finally to madness. From the beginning the E.P.R.L.F. had
to swim against the dominant trends in Jaffna society. Its early members were
able young men influenced by Marxist ideas, who left school early and went into
political work in the villages. But the social prestige, as well as fund-collections,
largely went to the groups demonstrating military success. In its own drive
for militarisation, the E.P.R.L.F. recruited a large number of persons from
the depressed classes and gave them guns. They were used without political education
to give them self-confidence, infusing in them a sense of purpose, or giving
them the awareness to challenge the dominant elitist ideology. The guns these
recruits had, without giving them a sense of dignity, provided them with a
means of expressing resentment against society in general. Instead of challenging
the dominant ideology and the oppressive aspects of Tamil social tradition,
it reinforced prejudices flowing from them. Since the L.T.T.E. was a military
organisation which did not articulate a social program, traditional elements
in society found it easy to sympathise and even form tactical links with it.
And while the E.P.R.L.F. was unable to act as a liberating influence and mould
the depressed classes into a political force, the L.T.T.E. could take recruits
from the same classes and mould them effectively into a military force.

When the E.P.R.L.F.
returned in the company of the I.P.K.F. in August 1987, it did so with a strong
urge for revenge against the L.T.T.E. and a deep resentment against the people.
In time, the use made of them by the I.P.K.F. made them suspicious and resentful
of people in general. The I.P.K.F.'s use of them as hit men and informants
operating from I.P.K.F. camps, completely destroyed their political potential.
Even after realising power through the Provincial Council, they lacked the party
discipline and ability to mobilise support from sections of the population whose
just grievances had not been addressed by the politics of the Jaffna elite -
grievances concerning the depressed classes in Jaffna, various regional issues
and the Muslim problem, among others. In reprisals after attacks by the L.T.T.E.,
they took the cue from the I.P.K.F.. Instead of mobilisation towards liberation,
what the depressed classes saw from them was greater inexplicable brutality
than that suffered by influential sections. The depressed classes had the worst
of killings, beatings and destruction of property. People sometimes came to
regard themselves lucky if detained by the I.P.K.F. rather than its allies who
were sons of this community. The E..P.R.L.F.'s participation in the I.P.K.F.'s
conscription program was a reflection of its powerlessness as well as a loss
of any sense of reality. With the prospect of the I.P.K.F. going in early 1990,
leaving them high and dry, pretending that the T.N.A. would protect them, their
anger turned against the people rather than against India. The I.P.K.F. did
nothing to deter their ruinous conduct. Anyone who was suspected of harbouring
L.T.T.E. sympathies was in danger of being killed. Some members of the E.P.R.L.F.
and other militant groups aligned to the I.P.K.F., during their last days in
Jaffna, visited many cruelties on the civilians, including the murder of the
Jaffna Kachcheri accountant who argued against an unfair instruction. Again,
it was as usual the depressed classes who felt most helpless against this orgy
of indiscipline and blind fury. Having begun as a movement with socialist and
democratic ideals, its final role was to strengthen the dominant politics of
Tamil society, rein-force its hierarchical and totalitarian drift, and to destroy
for many years to come, the prospect of an alternative.

Those who aspire
to leadership should be judged harshly for their misuse of opportunities and
authority, and for murdering those whom they were meant to protect. In looking
at this situation however, it is well for us to try and understand it. We must
also look at the role of the society, its opportunism, insensitivity, shallowness
and its immense capacity to stifle and destroy youthful potential. We must
look also at the destructiveness of the dominant politics and, in particular,
the role of the L.T.T.E.. The early leaders of the E.P.R.L.F. were once young
men who were motivated by ideals into doing political work. Our society did
not give them admiration or respect. There was no serious opposition to the
L.T.T.E.'s banning them in December 1986, killing over 50 of their members in
custody by April 1987 and even branding them first as anti-social elements and,
later on, as traitors. The L.T.T.E. would not only not allow them to do political
work, but also sought to destroy them without even the honour that was their
due. The anger of young men placed in that position should be understood, although
it cannot be justified politically or morally.

Once in the
I.P.K.F. bandwagon, the E.P.R.L.F. lost many of its abler leaders who had earlier
stayed on. Many of its cadre had little idea of what they were going to do,
except to have the prospect of ignominious death hanging over them. The E.P.R.L.F.'s
late Trincomalee leader, George Thambirajah, had told a class-mate on his return
to Trincomalee in August 1987,"I know that the L.T.T.E. will get me one
day. Before that I will take as many of them as I can down with me." Another
leader who had been a pleasant, dedicated young man in his earlier years said:
"We did political work once. That was not appreciated. We were not allowed
to work. Like Stalin, we had to take a decision to survive. So we decided to
kill". The organisation had come a long way from 1986, when it had maintained
a democratic structure, and had mostly avoided the resort to internal or other
killings which were rife in other prominent militant groups.

Mannar town
was one place where the E.P.R.L.F. had earned itself an acceptable name with
the public. A few days before the I.P.K.F.'s departure in December 1989 and
the re-entry of the L.T.T.E., some foot-ball players from schools were on their
way to an L.T.T.E. sponsored match. When asked by the E.P.R.L.F., they said
that they would be in trouble if they failed to go. The E.P.R.L.F. men looked
sombre. They said,"We will not stop you or cause you trouble. You need
not have any anxiety over fighting here. We are withdrawing. We have tried to
maintain an understanding relationship with the people in our area. But now
there is nothing we can do. Those from our group elsewhere have misbehaved with
the people. We will leave this place and go to some other country".

Another said,
"I brought several of my close friends into this organisation.They have
now been killed as traitors. My parents are influential and I could have lived
comfortably. I stayed on to prove that my friends who died were not traitors".

Although generally
suspicious of civilians and instinctively aggressive, some of these militants
would, seeing that no ill was meant, listen after being shouted at. They would
even listen submissively on being told that they were no longer a political
force, and that many of them had once been young men who wanted to do some good,
but had now become psychiatric patients. Some of them would admit that the
T.N.A. was a total disaster, but would not say who promoted it. They even felt
that the only way to regain some credibility was to disband the T.N.A., ask
parents to take their children away and make a confession before the public.
But they were doubtful if the leadership would accept it. They were also crucially
dependent on India for their security. A public confession would have to say
many things embarrassing to India. Having come to depend on India, they would
in time suffer the tragic fate of those who were used by a big power and proved
an embarrassment later on. Those who survived the arduous crossing to India
would meet with rejection and humiliation, in sharp contrast to earlier days,following
July 1983.

I.4 India and the Indian
Peace

Keeping
Force

To
arrive at a proper understanding of this episode, one must try to get away from
the strong emotions that this has engendered. The average Indian officer can
only see an ungrateful population set against the deaths of many comrades. Civilian
deaths, agony and anger do not exist for him. They did their job the only way
they were trained to do it, they would contend. If you want to blame anyone,
blame the politicians, they would say. It has been a temptation for many Tamils
to use racial sentiments found in the West to malign an army from a poor third
world country. That would be unfair. The Indian Army has the professional qualities
to be used as a disciplined force. Reprisals have mostly been carried out in
a planned manner, intended to terrorise.

The failure
of the Indian Army is largely a consequence of arrogance and, stemming from
it, a refusal to understand and respect civilian feelings. Considering the
stakes India had in this situation, the number of Indians who came here with
a view to making a serious study of the situation was low, in comparison with
the number of Westerners who came here. Most damaging, apart from a deliberate
decision to use terror in most difficult situations, were political decisions
by the I.P.K.F.. While pleading that they were not politicians, but were military
men doing only a military job, they used their powers freely to experiment with
politics - forming citizens committees, censoring the press, directing the actions
of militant groups, and so on. The decision to terrorise L.T.T.E. supporters
through murder during the run up to the provincial council elections in October
1988, was a political decision of the I.P.K.F.. From the talk of some officials,
this appears to have been made on the premise that, because Jaffna Tamils were
opportunistic enough to accept the mass killings of T.E.L.O. members in mid-1986
in exchange for order, they would once again accept the decimation of L.T.T.E.
supporters for the same reason. Such decisions determined the negative attributes
which were fatal for the E.P.R.L.F.-led provincial administration. The I.P.K.F.'s
opposition to the L.T.T.E. was not based on a political critique of the L.T.T.E..
There was, rather, much admiration for the L.T.T.E. amongst I.P.K.F. officers.
For an army placed as the I.P.K.F. was, political decisions were certainly
necessary. They should at least have been taken in keeping with democratic principles
subscribed to by India, rather than left to casual arrogance.

Perhaps the
most inexcusable decision of India's was to form the T.N.A. by forced conscription.
It was done under conditions which lacked both accountability and legitimacy.
Neither the I.P.K.F. nor the E.P.R.L.F. led administration, had earned the latter.
It was done in a manner that was callous, offensive and degrading. Young boys
were picked off the streets, long distance buses and trains. To poor and defenceless
parents was added the agony and the tedium of going from place to place and
from camp to camp, in an attempt to trace their sons. These wretches, numbering
the thousands, were given meagre training and armed to survive as best as they
could. They were disowned by almost all, including India. For many, this single
act of forced conscription, terminated any feeling that India could play a constructive
role.

What prompted
this high-level decision which was, at once, indefensible, irresponsible and
even tactically unsound ? Who in the Indian hierarchy made this decision on
conscription? Whose interests were being represented here? Or was it the decision
of a bankrupt bureaucracy that just wanted to try something, however stupid?

During early
1988, an Indian General told a university delegation that recovering arms is
an extremely difficult job, adding that for this purpose they would use "these
gun-toting rascals" and then disarm them. The reference was to pro-Indian
groups. He explained that every non-professional person carrying a gun was a
rascal. Having started with a disarming operation, India has now turned to
flooding the place with arms and in militarising those already disillusioned
with what had happened. There was no more talk of rehabilitation.

For young Indian
soldiers, it is time for home thoughts. On the streets you may see one examining
a new pair of trousers collected from the tailors. Another might test his newly
purchased pocket radio. Those more curious would chat with the civilians. "In
Mannar, the people were nice to us. But in Jaffna it is different", they
would say. They too had discovered that many houses in Jaffna have some member
abroad. One may hear them remark, "So, when the troubles begin, you will
leave the others and go away". They too are a simple people like ourselves,
taking a simple joy in the simple and inexpensive things of life. With India
very much a part of our nurture, it is a pity that our actual encounter has
left many bitter memories.

For thousands
of our young men, so thoughtlessly used by India, there can never be home thoughts.[Top]